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This seemed unusually difficult for Phi and one clue completely defeated me. There are a few I’m not sure about, which will I’m sure be rapidly explained here.

Across

1

M(US(1)CO LOG)Y

6

KNOB — (bonk)rev.

9

RIDING CROP — the second word is indicated by ‘to yield grain’, so no danger of a definition by example here

10

TW{il}IT

12

HARE MS

13

PRO SOD {fanc}Y — despite what one might think when hearing the word, prosody is amongst other things, according to Chambers, the study of versification, so a very nice definition

15

ALL OVER THE P(L)ACE

18

DEPART MENT(ST)OR {exclusiv}E

19

QU(ART){i}ET — but a chamber group with piano is only an example of a quartet: there are lots of other possible quartet combinations, so this looks to me like the dreaded definition by example. Or am I failing to understand something about music? Is it always a string quartet, or a wind quartet, or whatever, if there isn’t a piano?

20

DE JA V U{nusual}

23

{l}ARCH

24

URBI ET ORBI — ({yo}u toe rib rib)* — not being a good Catholic, I’d never heard of this

25

F {j}URY

26

CYBERSPACE — (Percy’s beac{h})*

Down

1

MARS H(L)AND — not totally happy with the wordplay here, which seems to me to lead to MARSLHLAND

2

SE(D)ER

3

CINEMA VERITÉ — (mere inactive)*

4

LOCK — I think, but am not entirely sure, that the idea here is that a lock is a rugby forward, and a lock on a door etc prevents you from going forward

5

G(R)O UP THIN K — I suppose I should have worked this out and the word is at least in Chambers, but I didn’t

EXE{s} CUT I’VE — although I can find nothing to suggest that exes is short for expenses

19

QU AFF{ect}

21

A TRIA{l}

22

S{e}IZE

This entry was posted on Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 12:25 pm and is filed under Independent.
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I may have been lucky but I found this quite easy, my main difficulty being with 22 down with ?I?E, before I got SIZE.
While it may be a matter of taste, I’ll admit I’m entirely happy with definition by example as long of course as the wordplay will also lead to it as normal. Exes as expenses I’ve definitely seen used – it is in Chambers. Trickiest clue, QUARTET, I got the answer long before seeing the wordplay.